April 09, 2012

Sunshine & Happiness Layouts

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! Today, we have TWO posts happening here on the blog. Make sure and stop back by in a few hours, when we will share our April Project Sheet with you. But first, check out these awesome layouts by our Design Team, featuring the new Sunshine & Happiness collection!

One of my favorite pieces of paper in each of the Bella Blvd collections is the Cute Cuts sheet. There are always cute images that coordinate with the papers and journaling cards too. On this layout I used the journaling cards as a mat for my photos. It was a quick and easy way to make them pop off the page.

Our family ... we don’t get out much. Or I should say that we don’t get far away from home often. So if I were to do a page about a summer road trip, it would be about my kids on their bikes, pedaling their way to the corner grocery store. This is the first year that they started venturing out, away from home, on their own. So I wanted to create this page, not about a big trip far from home, but a great memory about real life here in the summer time. Because in our neighborhood, everyday is a good day for a road trip of this kind.

So, I am in love with this teal chevron pattern. I knew that I had to use the whole sheet because I couldn't bear to cut it up. I started with that for the background and decided where I wanted to place my photos. I then cut strips of the other patterns to build around my photos. Then I started layering with chipboard alphas, shapes and added a little dimension with some foam adhesive behind some of the elements. I chose to leave quite a bit of white space along the left side of the layout so that the chevron pattern could "work" on it's own.

Who doesn't love summer?! I love that the Cute Cuts make it so easy to put a fun and colorful title on my page. I combined several fun chipboard shapes from the Clouds and Borders Ciao Chip Elements to create a fun summer scene to coordinate with the theme. I love how all the colors easily mix and match. A couple fun flags share in the festivities.

Stickers, stickers, stickers! On this layout I adhered the photo first and then just started building outward and around with all the fabulous Bella stickers, chipboard, flowers, buttons, tape. Since I had such a fun patterned background I thought framing the photo with the product would help keep the focus where I wanted it. It definitely makes me ready for some sunshine again!